by Allen Zadoff
“I already have a family,” Chance says.
“Got ya,” the employee says, backing off. “Feel free to browse, and enjoy the free Wi-Fi.”
I follow Chance toward a table of shiny new phones. The smell of the technology is still making me uncomfortable, but whatever memory was brewing seems to be gone.
“My mom said she’d buy me one of these for my birthday,” Chance says. “That was last year, right before things got bad. Maybe this year will be different.”
He turns on a phone, opens a browser, and types: If you find a lost pet.
I put two paws on the table and look at the row of shiny new phones with bright, colorful screens. I can see why humans find these cool. One of the screens shows kites flying through the air. I lick my lips, wanting to chase after them.
“They’re not real,” Chance says when he notices me pawing at the screen.
“I know, I know,” I say.
I look back at the screen, and the kites disappear, replaced by a girl’s face. I blink hard, startled by the sudden change. The girl is maybe thirteen years old, with a dark complexion and light green eyes. She has long black hair with a cool blue stripe down one side.
It seems like I’m looking at a still photo, and then the girl moves, surprising me.
“Hi there,” the girl says.
Chance looks over to see who’s talking.
“On the screen,” the girl says.
I recognize the girl’s voice. It’s Junebug, the girl I heard on the bike.
I stare at her, wondering why it feels like there’s something familiar about her face. I comb my memory, trying to figure out if I’ve met her before.
“Are you on a video chat or something?” Chance asks.
“Put the girl on,” Junebug says.
“What girl?”
“Are you the guy with the blue-van dudes after you?”
Chance’s face goes pale. “How do you know about that?”
“Just put her on.”
Chance looks around us. “There’s no girl.”
“The one they call the Dog.”
Chance glances down at me, then he points the phone toward me. “You mean this dog?”
“Listen, kid—”
“I’m not a kid.”
“You’re pretty young,” Junebug says.
“So are you.”
Junebug scowls. “I don’t have time to fool around. The blue dudes are still after you, they just can’t see your signal inside the store. But they’ll figure it out pretty fast, and they’re super angry.”
“How do you know all this?” Chance asks.
“Let me talk to the girl I was talking to earlier. Her handle is Wild.”
“Wild is a dog,” Chance says.
Junebug’s mouth drops open. “You mean the Dog is a real dog?”
“What else would she be?” Chance asks.
“But I’ve been talking to her.”
“That’s impossible,” Chance says. “She can’t talk.”
“Hang on a second,” Junebug says, and she pulls out an earpiece of some kind and slips it into her right ear.
I remember the moment that Myron pointed to his ear in the backroom at PetStar. I don’t have have the device for my ear, he said.
Junebug taps her earpiece. Is that what he meant?
“Hello? Can you hear me?” she asks.
I hear her voice in my head, just like I did when I was on the bike.
“It’s me,” I say.
She gasps. “You’re Wild? But you’re a dog!”
“I think we established that.”
“How are we talking to each other?”
“I think it’s my collar,” I say. “It’s some kind of translator.”
Chance rubs his face in disbelief. “This is impossible,” he says. “Are you talking to Wild?”
“This is surreal,” Junebug says.
“I hear you speaking, but I only hear Wild barking,” Chance says.
“Wild says it has something to do with her collar,” Junebug says.
Chance stares at me, and his mouth drops open.
“That’s like Nobel Prize stuff,” Chance says.
“I didn’t invent it. I’m just wearing it,” I say.
Junebug laughs, and Chance frowns. “What are you guys talking about?”
“She said something funny.”
“It’s not fair that you can talk to her and I can’t. How did you figure that out?”
“I’m a hacker,” she says with a shrug.
“But you’re my age.”
“I got you out of the jam on your bike, didn’t I?”
He looks from me to Junebug, confused. “You were talking to her during the chase?”
“Explain what happened,” I tell Junebug.
She starts to tell him, while I check the area to make sure we’re still safe.
I trot over to the glass storefront, just in time to see the large Animal Control officer from the group home walk by with some kind of device in his hand. He scans the Promenade in front of the store, his head turning this way and that as he looks for my signal.
I growl at him through the glass, wanting to get back at him for trying to shoot me in Chance’s bedroom. But I restrain myself and back up so I can watch him through the legs of customers without being seen.
He turns the device toward the Apple Store, then he frowns and adjusts the dial. I can see from his face that he can’t find my signal. It seems like he’s going to keep moving, but then he changes his mind at the last minute and heads toward the door.
I race back to find Junebug and Chance in mid-conversation.
“What kind of name is Junebug?” he’s asking her.
“A totally cool name.”
“I hate to break up the party, but we’ve got company. There’s an Animal Control officer walking into the store.”
“Darn it. Hold on.” Junebug swivels in her chair and types at a keyboard. “Wild saw one of the blue dudes,” she explains to Chance. “I checked the radio comms. He hasn’t seen you yet. You have to get out of there!”
“Where are we going to go?” Chance asks.
“The beach,” Junebug says.
Chance frowns. “It’s not really a beach day.”
“You’re not going for a tan, kid.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“There’s a major power line that runs up Ocean Avenue,” Junebug says. “If you stay on the beach and west of the avenue, they won’t be able to see you.”
“I get it,” I say, and I pull at Chance’s pant leg.
The large officer is on the far side of the store. There are dozens of people between us and him, but it’s only a matter of time before he finds us.
“Before we go,” Chance says to Junebug. “How do I talk to Wild like you do?”
“No time,” she says.
Junebug cuts off the chat, and the screen goes black. I see the large officer turn in our direction.
We have to go!
I dart through the customers’ legs, staying low so I won’t be seen as Chance and I rush out of the store.
THE RAIN HAS STOPPED.
I feel a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean as Chance and I blend with the tourists walking along the Promenade. I check over my shoulder, looking and listening for trouble.
“Is he back there?” Chance asks.
I sniff the air and decide we’ve lost him. I yip to let Chance know we’re okay, at least for a moment.
A group of stroller moms block the way ahead. They’re watching a street performer making balloon animals.
I pause, fascinated, as the performer twists a long, thin balloon, transforming it into the shape of a dachshund.
I dash forward, wanting to grab the colorful balloon.
“Whoa!” Chance says, pulling me back by the collar. “What happened to keeping a low profile?”
“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” I snort and shake it off.
The pe
rformer hands the balloon dog to a little boy who squeals in delight and clutches it to his chest. The boy presses too hard and the balloon pops, causing the dog to deflate.
I bark my displeasure.
“It’s just a balloon,” Chance says. “You can’t get upset at little stuff like that. My mom says if you let the little stuff get to you, what will happen when the big stuff comes around?”
I guess he’s right. The noise, the balloons, the people. It’s a little too much for me after the shock of being understood for the first time by Junebug.
I turn away from the crowd, and Chance guides me off the Promenade and across Ocean Avenue. We walk south along the edge of the beach until the crowds thin out. Chance finds a bench hidden behind a bank of trees that faces the water.
He slumps down, exhausted, and I hop up and sit next to him. I push my face into the wind and feel it tickle across my lips. It sends a ripple of pleasure through me.
“I always like it when my mom takes me to the beach,” Chance says.
He’s sitting with his head back, letting the sun warm his face. I guess humans enjoy the beach, too.
“Sunday is our phone-call day,” he says. “I’m supposed to talk to my mom in an hour and a half. What am I going to tell her about all this, Wild?”
He bites his lip, thinking hard.
“And what if my housemother reports that I’m gone?” he says.
I don’t think she’s going to do that, but I can’t explain it to Chance. Not yet, at least.
I look at his eyes, heavy with concern, and I’m frustrated again at not being able to speak to him.
Myron said I loaned him an earbud that allowed us to talk. That means there’s an earbud somewhere that would allow me to talk with Chance. But where?
I think about the discussion of the collar that we had in the Apple Store, and I nudge Chance.
“What is it?”
I turn to the side, exposing the collar for his inspection.
“Junebug said you thought the collar was translating your voice.”
I bark an acknowledgment.
“Is it okay if I touch it?”
I lower my head, granting him access to the collar.
“This is where it was glowing earlier,” he says, tugging at the section on the back of my neck. “It feels like one solid piece, except it gets thicker in the back here.”
I crane my neck, trying to see what he sees.
“There’s some kind of indentation.…”
I hear a mechanical swish from the back of the collar, and Chance gasps.
“It opened!” he says. “There’s something in here.”
“What?” I say excitedly.
He holds out his hand, palm open. There’s a tiny white earbud in his hand, much smaller than the one Junebug was wearing.
“The box on the collar had a hidden chamber. When I took out the earbud, it closed again.”
It’s the second part of the translator Myron was talking about!
I frantically wiggle my ears, then point my snout toward Chance’s head.
“You want me to put it in my ear?” Chance asks nervously.
I nod. Chance moves the tiny bud around with his finger.
“What if it’s dangerous?”
I whimper and nudge his calf.
Be brave, Chance.
He takes a deep breath. “I’d try anything to talk with you.”
He pinches the white bud and slides it into his ear, then scrunches up his face as if he’s in pain.
I watch him, concerned.
A moment later he relaxes, opening and closing his jaw a few times. “It hurt for a second, but now I’m okay. So what do we do next?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s some kind of volume—”
Chance screams and jumps up from the bench. “I heard a girl’s voice in my head!”
“What girl?”
He looks at me, his breath quickening. “What girl? It’s you, Wild!”
Oh. Right.
“You can understand me?”
“Yes! It’s amazing! Junebug was telling the truth!”
I skitter back and forth excitedly while Chance hops up and down laughing.
“This is great!” I say.
“We can talk to each other. This is the most amazing invention ever!”
Some people on the beach look over. I imagine them seeing a boy and his dog, jumping up and down for no reason at all.
“We can’t attract too much attention,” I say.
“You’re right,” he says, struggling to hold back his excitement. He paces in front of the bench. “How is this possible? Who made something like this?”
“I don’t know who made it or where it comes from,” I say.
He stops suddenly. “So wait. Have you been able to understand me since we met?”
“Sure.”
“You speak human language and dog language?”
“I can understand dogs, but they don’t have much to say. It’s basic, like one-word sentences and a lot of noises.”
“Just like Bash in the group home.”
Chance is funny, even more so now that we’re talking to each other.
“Something like that,” I say with a laugh. “But dogs don’t rely on language like people do. For us it’s more about smell and our other senses.”
“Not you, though. You’re special. How did you become like this?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m not just a dog, and I’m not human. It’s like I’m stuck somewhere in between.”
He sits down next to me on the bench, suddenly serious.
“You must know where you came from. I mean, where do you live? Where’s your family?”
I shake my head. “I woke up on a yacht, and my mind was blank. It’s like my memory was erased when I was shot.”
“Shot?”
“That mark on the back of my neck. I think it’s from those zapper weapons the Animal Control officers were carrying.”
He looks at the fur on the back of my neck. “The mark is gone.”
“My body seems to heal really fast. That’s something else unusual about me.”
“Can you remember your name?” Chance asks.
“I don’t remember anything.”
I don’t tell Chance about the dreams of the blond soldier or the flashback of the little girl in pink shoes. I don’t want to frighten him.
“Wow,” Chance says. “I thought the group home was weird, but this is like next level.”
He leans back, shaking his head in disbelief. “What’s it like to be a dog?” he asks.
“I don’t know exactly. What’s it like to be a human?”
He thinks about it for a second. “It’s not like anything. I’m just who I am.”
“Me, too.”
“Wow. I never thought of it like that.”
I sit next to him, and both of us get quiet. I listen to the waves crashing against the sand. It’s amazing to think I was in that same ocean less than forty-eight hours ago, swimming for my life.
I hear laughter carried on the wind. I look out at children playing in the waves. They splash water at each other as their parents watch from the beach nearby.
My heart feels heavy. “I have to find out who I am. Then maybe I’ll know where to find my home.”
“I want to go home, too,” Chance says quietly. “I guess we’ve got something in common.”
He takes out his phone. “No signal out here,” he says. “My mom’s going to call in a little while.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say.
He kicks at the sand, then he glances up at the laughing children.
“I’ll help you find your home, Wild. I just need to get to the court hearing with my mom on Thursday. I know that’s a few days away, but those Animal Control guys are coming after us hard, and we can’t go back to the group home—”
Chance sniffles, and he quickly covers his face with his hands.
“Sorry,” he sa
ys through tears. “You must think I’m a loser.”
His crying opens up something inside me, and I want to run to him, lick his face, press my body against his until his sadness goes away.
But I don’t do it.
I’m not even sure I know how. I’m not one of those cute, cuddly dogs that can make people feel better.
What kind of dog am I?
“Hey, Chance.” He sniffles and looks up. “I’ll get you back to your mom.”
He watches me through bloodshot eyes. “Really?”
“I promise.”
He rubs his face, and his tears stop. Then he clears his throat and stands up. “I was thinking about that Magic Myron guy. He knew something about you, didn’t he?”
“That’s right. I trusted him in the past, but I don’t know why. He had a case with my collar in it. He told me I left it for myself.”
“Did you leave anything else? Like money so we can get a hotel and some room service?”
Room service. I remember that term. I get a memory of thick steaks served on silver trays.
“No money,” I say. “Only this collar. And a few clues from what Myron said.”
“If Myron knows about your past, shouldn’t we go back and talk to him? Especially now that I can translate for you. You can ask him whatever you want.”
“That’s a smart idea,” I say. “But Junebug warned us to stay near the beach, or the Animal Control guys will be able to see my signal.”
“Your signal. But I don’t have a signal.” Chance points away from the beach. “I could go back into town and talk to Myron without you.”
“It’s too dangerous. Plus, I don’t think he’d talk to you alone.”
“That settles it, then,” Chance says. “We have to go together.”
I don’t like the idea of Chance coming with me, but we can’t stay here forever, and I’m not willing to leave him alone with an army of Animal Control officers looking for us.
So I choose the best of the bad options in front of me.
“We’ll go back to PetStar,” I say.
“YES!” Chance smiles and pumps his fist.
“We have to stay under the power lines, move fast, and dodge the officers. Can you handle that?”
“I’ve been dodging bullies for three months,” he says. “I can run really fast.”
“WELCOME TO PETSTAR, WHERE YOUR PET IS THE STAR OF THE SHOW.”
A young woman in a red vest smiles and greets us at the front of the store.